Mindmade Debatable - A hilarious party game for people who love to argue

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In a circle, have one person state an argumentative claim in a complete sentence with reasoning. For instance, “Schools should increase funding for mental health services because dealing with stress helps students do better academically.” The next person in the circle then restates the claim, but with fewer words. The next person builds on the new version but with more powerful words (i.e. “Schools are responsible for students’ mental health to prevent academic failure.”) Repeat until the claim is concise with powerful words and then have someone start a new claim. Give everyone a topic and set a timer for 4 minutes for them to silently outline 2-3 arguments on both sides. Repeat with a new topic, but this time set a timer for 3 minutes to outline both sides. Keep repeating with new topics, but reduce the outline preparation time each time.

Second, compared to the first two, Speed Debating is less public. Individuals talk to individuals, they can ‘hide’ in the crowd and the general noise the parallel debates create. So it lends itself to participants being able to practice what they say and how they say it. They could be encouraged to make one claim (see: If I ruled the world…) and give one explanation (see: The Why Game) before the other side responds. Debaters take turns making a single move each so to speak. It’s a bit like playing several rounds of fast chess. Creative debate is a role-playing exercise. Students assume a specific point of view on a topic and debate a controversial topic from this perspective. Creative debates promote both critical thinking and tolerance of opposing views. First of all, Speed Debating is one of the less structured debate games, which in my experience makes it more engaging depending on the group. It’s great as a warm-up, for breaking the ice or to wrap things up in the end. There’s a bigger risk for participants to strawman an argument, but this will be offset once the tables have turned.Round 2: Dish the Dirt – possible search terms for students to use when using the web to research negative points about the rival finalists! Pull together a large number of index cards and write “Comment” on half and “Question” on the other half. Next, ask the student teams to change their positions and argue the opposing viewpoint. (Perhaps the group of observers might change places with one of the other groups.)

Tell students to walk to the corner that best explains about how they feel about the topic. Give the groups a few minutes to talk about the topic and write down the reasons for their decision. It’s a bit of a silly practice of course. This is one of the debate games that encourages us to justify ourselves until we run out of sensible things to say by running into the so-called Münchhausen Trilemma. From my experience, people usually start by giving thoughtful and complex explanations until they feel the pressure mounting. Soon they’re forced into nitty-gritty terrain where they simply run out of things to say. They grow more and more defensive by the mere fact of having to justify themselves until their mind shuts down. Even though the rules don’t say, you have to reply in a heartbeat. Conscious ChoicesSimilarly, this activity can be done individually by putting statements on index cards and responding to them as you draw them out of a hat. In sum, If I ruled the world… can be played as a mere uttering of meaningless words. If we prefer to use it to its full potential, on the other hand, we can make it a warm-up or an exercise to practice what we say and how we say it. It’s also great as a diagnostic tool to gauge how comfortable people are in their presentation. In any case, this activity lays the groundwork for debate game number two. 2. The Why Game

Rearrange the classroom so that the opposing groups face one another and the observers are seated at one side. Let’s take the peanut butter angle from game one. Each participant gets up in front of the group and makes their statement again. Now the crowd comes at them. Not with pitchforks, not with moral judgement, but with a simple question asked in unison: Practice giving warrants and reasons for your arguments. For more difficulty, you can increase the number of reasons you have to give.When each group has a winner, you can have a further round in front of the class to find an overall winning object. 8) Balloon Debate